The Power of the Child
by La Flamingo
Summary: [Children of Men] Small and tiny she may be, helpless on her own and unable to protect herself, but this new child in the age of the dying affected even the smallest of characters. Drabble.
1. It Was Easier To Accept Without Life

**It Was Easier to Accept Without Life**

_(Theo)_

The job is shit, the life is shit, the cigarettes taste like shit, and he knows that what he's doing is shit on his lungs, but he accepts it.

Funny, innit? He sees death in front of him, looks in the mirror–_hello chap, how many years we got now?–_and acknowledges that there are no more beginnings for him, for his generation and for the world, and yet seeing the swollen stomach of Kee makes him deny everything.

He accepted death, but accepting that there's a possibility for life is too much.

Oh, Jasper would laugh at the irony.


	2. Going Out With Style

**Going Out With Style**

_(Jasper)_

The pills didn't work the first time and that pissed the hell out of him.

The second time they didn't work he decides that, _fuck it, _this won't do. He'll go out the noble way.

He tells Theo that he's had to worm his way out of a lot more complicated situations, and at heart that's true.

But he understands that this is the end.

No–fuck them–pills (though if we really must be honest, he hadn't expected them to work in the first place). No gun to the head or pleading for life.

Jasper's going out with style.

"Hey, pull my finger."


	3. Only Guy I Can Do This With

**Only Guy I Can Do This With**

_(Kee)_

She doesn't trust him when he first gets in the car, and at her 'fuck's he lookin' at?' comment he clearly doesn't her, either, but after five hours in that silent vehicle, after the orange is peeled and Julie looks at him and says pointedly, "this is the only guy I can still do this with," Kee realizes there's more.

Sure, they're just popping ping-pong balls at each other, but when he starts laughing and Julie starts laughing and he glances at Julie and the other women with an odd glint in his eye, Kee understands that this man will protect her with his life.

He is a Guardian.


	4. Pain Forgiver

**Pain Forgiver  
**

_(Julian)_

Childbirth was a bitch but over the years she's found that she really, really, really missed the pain. So unique was the agony and the relief afterwards. So unique was the mix of hatred and love for the little squirming mass that proclaimed to the world, "I'm here, I'm a baby, I'm hungry and–MY GOD, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?!?!"

It caused the worst pain ever experienced by woman for more than three hours and yet, looking here at its bawling face and tiny, chubby fists, something enters the veins like a pain forgiver.

Julian misses that paradox.


	5. The Ages InBetween

**The Ages In-Between**

_(Miriam)_

She remembers her son as an angel in her arms, screaming and writhing about but still hers.

She remembers as he grew older, as he started teething and she taught him the ways of the graham cracker, the rattle, and Gerbers. He wasn't really a fan of peach cobbler, but he enjoyed banana even though it took her a while to convince him–and her–to eat it.

She remembers grade school and the creatures following afterwards, including college.

She remembers when he committed suicide at the tender age of twenty-five.

Miriam remembers all these things and tells herself that they can't happen to Kee. It is not fair or right for a child to see such monsters, or for a child not even to exist.

The baby must live, no matter what the cost.


	6. Basics of Biology

**Basics of Biology**  
_(Marichka)_

Marichka only anchor in the madness was the money, the rooms, and Santa. When tall man and the black woman frantically found her in the darkness of that night, she reasoned that it would be no different.

But ah...how things change. Marichka may not speak their language, nor understand their customs or lives, but she knows the basics of biology when she sees them.

Plump stomach. Stopping and going. Pain.

_Pregnant. _A part of her whispers. _The woman is pregnant. _

They shoo her and Santa out of the room not more than five seconds later, trying frantically to hide their secret.

But Marichka already knows.


	7. Fish in the Future

**Fish in the Future**

_(Luke)_

Rage is a potent elixir. It thrums strongly through his veins when Patric tells them that Kee and Theo escaped, but the brew doesn't begin to boil until far, far later.

Betrayed and duped by a desk jockey, a pregnant woman and an ex-nurse, dragged half-way across England and shoved into that shit-hole of a refugee camp, all that possesses Luke is the belief that the baby is _theirs_ for the future. Not Kee's.

It's only when he grabs Kee and hears screaming–infant screaming–that something in him cracks.

_Are you sure? _The something asks. _Does this future belong to the Fish?_

The baby bawls louder.

Luke ignores it.


	8. Fin and Author's Note

**A/N: **_Children of Men_ is property of P.D. James and Universal Studios. I am merely a kid who was floored by a fantastic film.

I hope you enjoyed the drabbles, even if they danced over the 100-word limit more than a few times. This was a first for me and while it was somewhat difficult to clip down on words (difficult, sheesh, it was painful), this was a nice way to learn to write more succinctly.

Questions? Comments? Reviews? Advice? Feel free to post 'em.

Thanks for the time,

LaFlamingo


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